If we turn to history and tradition, we are at once met with the fact that the Twelve Signs are the same, both as to the meaning of their names and as to their order in all the ancient nations of the world. The Chinese, Chaldean, and Egyptian records go back to more than 2,000 years B.C. Indeed, the Zodiacs in the Temples of Denderah and Esn'eh, in Egypt, are doubtless copies of Zodiacs still more ancient, which, from internal evidence, must be placed nearly 4,000 B.C., when the summer solstice was in Leo.

Josephus hands down to us what he gives as the traditions of his own nation, corroborated by his reference to eight ancient Gentiles authorities, whose works are lost. He says that they all assert that "God gave the antediluvians such a long life that they might perfect those things which that had invented in astronomy." Cassini commences his History of Astronomy by saying "It is impossible to doubt that astronomy was invented from the beginning of the world; history, profane as well as sacred, testifies to this truth." Nouet, a French astronomer, infers that the Egyptian Astronomy must have arisen 5,400 B.C.!

Ancient Persian and Arabian traditions ascribe its invention to Adam, Seth, and Enoch. Josephus asserts that it originated in the family of Seth; and he says that the children of Seth, and especially Adam, Seth, and Enoch, that their revelation might not be lost as to the two coming judgments of Water and Fire, made two pillars (one of brick, the other of stone), describing the whole of the predictions of the stars upon them, and in case the brick pillar should be destroyed by the flood, the stone would preserve the revelation (Book i. chi. 1-3).